The Good Word

Don’t judge by the dirty picture, this trailer is PG. Looks like an awesomely nerdy movie. Anyone heard anything about it?

(Disclamer: Strange post, good song – hit up the Playlist.com widget to the right even if you don’t make it through the post itself.)

Whenever I start getting uncomfortable about Roman culture, when I'm lecturing on the minotaur (born from the coupling of Phasiphae and the Cretan bull), or the Stymphalian birds (which either had teeth and ate human flesh or shot arrows from their mouths - there are conflicting accounts), I think about what archeologists are going to find during digs in the ruins of New York City a thousand years from now.

Archaeologist 1: It appears that the primitive Americans were most frightened by dolls capable of locomotion and sewer dwelling clowns. Also, really big dogs.

Archaeologist 2: Well, that conflicts entirely with my research which seems to suggest that the Americans encouraged their children to worship a gigantic bird and his woolly mammoth friend, and that a certain redheaded clown was considered the patron deity of the McBurger – their primary food source.

Archaeologist 3: No, no, no. You have it all wrong. Clowns aren’t a source of horror or food – they are their teachers. Their legendary Bozo was a philosopher whom they honored during their most sacred Saturday mornings along with the ever-industrious Smurfs and heroic Thundercats.

But seriously, Rome isn’t that bad. I mean what society’s cultural apex doesn’t contain numerous and flagrant literary accounts of incest? Okay… maybe a bit far, but we do have Star Wars.

And speaking of weird brother-sister vibes, it’s Donnie and Marie…doing Star Wars (skip to about 1:30):

No, don’t bother watching both parts. And yes, that was Kris Kirstofferson as Han Solo. Right on the tip of your tongue wasn’t it?

And now, another, much more entertaining video from someone else who has never seen Star Wars:

Some people get up and run every morning, some people read their Bible, some people even go so far as to floss, but I think the best thing I could possibly do for my day would be to spend half an hour every morning just dancing around to Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger."

Queen of the Road

Gretchen is in the shop. My accident happened over three weeks ago, so it's about time. While the ol' ball and chain is getting a final once-over to determine if she's headed to the big junkyard in the sky, I'm driving what I like to call "The New Hotness." While it isn't much, and definitely not a car that I would consider masculine, it's about a flight* or two up from Gretchen. Right now I'm thinking of calling her Betsy, but maybe I should go for something a little more exotic.

She's a Saturn Vue, whatever the crap that is, and she's BRAND new. I'm talking plastic still on the floor mats, presets still set to deadair, only 15 miles on the odometer, the whole shebang. Plus, she's got XM radio and a CD player, which will be especially useful since I got a package from Mike and Maggie today containing a CD marked "Zach's Culture CD." I can only imagine that it's a copy of ABBA Gold.

After driving a busted-up Gretchen for several weeks, "The New hHtness" felt a little weird at first. Not only was I looking down at people at stop lights, but I had power windows, locks, and an XM radio (which will probably get its own post in the near future). I seriously felt like I had ditched my sandspeeder for an Imperial AT-AT Walker.

The biggest change, however, was actually being able to open up my driver's side door (which I haven't been able to do in a couple weeks). I left school midday to pick up the rental and as I pulled back into the parking lot I actually said out loud "well, now how in the hell do they expect me to climb over that console to get out." There was absolutely no thought in my mind that I could just open my door and exit the vehicle.

In other news I ate lunch with my 8th graders today. It seems strange, but our Executive Director asked us to try to eat with the students once a week. The soccer guys readily accepted me into their ranks and we spent most of the meal daring each other to eat some conncoction that one boy's mother had told him were "wasabi peas." That's right, you guessed it: dried peas covered in wasabi.

Also, I was informed by the lunch crowd that my facial hair was not in line with any known classification. They decided to call it the "mutton chop/soul patch killer combo," though I'm pretty sure it resembles neither.

Also, if you haven't already been over it, review my How George Lucas Stole Star Wars post and then check this: Brett Jordan's Blog

*Get it? A flight is like, a bunch of steps.

BoyScout got me an ice cream scoop! Rock on.

Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi, You're My Only Hope

I'm fairly out of touch. One way that this was recently pointed out to me was when I went up to the ticket booth at the movie theater earlier this week and saw that the new Clone Wars movie was out, and promptly purchased a ticket to a musical.

I neither knew that Clone Wars was out, nor had I kept up on the internet hype enough to even be excited about it. I finally watched a trailer last night, but I do think it's suspicious that I haven't heard anything about the movie at all.

That's definitely one of my standards for culture: if it can't get to me in cultural isolation (no T.V., no radio) then it probably isn't worth finding. So, has anyone actually seen this movie? Is it any good? Give me the skinny and I'll try to find someone nerdy enough to see this one with me.

Progress Report:

We talked last week around this time about what goals we had for the near and far future, and how unless we get some accountability we're never going to achieve them. Well, it's accountability time. So, if you posted last week, let us know how you're doing and if you didn't, just go ahead and post your new goals.

Last week's goals for me were:
Day: Week's worth of lesson plans.
Week: Hang out with someone.
Year: Be able to run 10.5 miles.

How'd I do?
Well, I've probably done that same week's worth of lesson plans about five times since then, but I did have it finished that day. We'll check that off. As I posted on Saturday, I hung out with Jose and did some spelunking.

But, what about my year-long goal? Well, I've made progress. I can now run about 3.5 miles without actually passing out somewhere along the way, but, as exhausted as I've been from working in my classroom for 9 hours a day, I've only been running every other day. I'd like to kick this up a notch, but I'm waiting for my body to get used to it. I'll let you know.

New Goals:

The general idea of this isn't that we have one sweet day or week where we get a lot done, but that we are making continual progress in measurable ways. So, here are my new goals for the day, week, and month.

Day: Nail down my finances well enough so that I can make a list of home improvements I want to make and the order in which I can do them.
Week: Cook. I need to increase my culinary repitoire, so that means cooking this weekend. Possibly cooking bread...
Month: I would like to say I just want to make it through the next month. Kids come back to school on Monday and surviving would be nice, but that's a little weak as far as goals go. What I'd really like for the next month is to be able to keep my content on this blog up to quality, to stay in contact with all you guys, to start planning the high school reunion for the class of 04 (yup, it's that time already) and to find Brad Hall (thanks Big E for the lead on that one).

So, if you posted your goals last week, give us an update and your new goals for the day, the week, and the next 30 days. If you haven't posted before, feel free to jump on in.

Also I'm going to need help with my goals so:
1) If you know a Mexican dish that would be a convenient party-type dish, give me the recipe.
2) If you are a member of the Carson City-Crystal graduating class of 2004, then e-mail me your mailing address and any information you might have about people who are going to be harder to find, like Brad Hall (though I know he didn't graduate with us).

Thanks, and thanks.

And now, your moment of zen: